Another One Bites the Dust: Iron Man 2 Flash Ficti
by L A Adolf
Summary: Maybe Tony wasn't drunk at his birthday party after all. Iron Man 2 movieverse.


Another One Bites the Dust **  
**  
L.A. Adolf

_"Dirty enough for you?" __  
_  
Tony Stark drained his martini glass, grimacing on the taste of the drink. Considering the fact that the drink Rushman had handed him before leaving the bedroom was olive brine with maybe an atom or two each of gin and vermouth, it was, in fact way _too_ dirty.

What, exactly, did she know? And who was she really? There was something about her, if only he could focus sufficiently to puzzle it out. But focus was becoming increasingly hard, and booze had nothing to do with it. He could fire her for not giving him the drink he'd actually requested, double the hard liquor and light on the brine, but she seemed to know or suspect…something.

Too much alcohol put a stress on liver and kidneys, caused brain cell die off, affected the permeability of cell walls and their ability to hold their contents in. Nasty stuff, which, when he'd "come out" as Iron Man he'd been well on his way to giving up, almost cold turkey. Yinsen would have been proud.

JARVIS had warned Tony a few minutes before his new assistant had entered the room that his blood toxicity was at the worst level to date, that any strain could lead to …well, let's not put too high a gloss on it—death.

And not a quick one. He'd be writhing in agony as he went into major organ system failure, agony that no modern painkiller could touch because none had been invented to approach easing the pain that palladium blood poisoning caused.

Now or months from now, that was the future that awaited him. A drink or two, or even ten, wasn't really going to change that. But it might have taken a bit of the edge off. Oh well, no matter. No time to get as stinking, obliviously potted as he'd have to pretend to be.

He'd never been known for his patience. Of all the ways to go, dying by degrees wasn't the one he'd choose for himself. Better to go out in a blaze of glory, or failing that, a magnificent disaster, one which took not only Tony Stark's miserable life, but ended the likelihood of a viable Iron Man as war and terror deterrent forever.

Tony was dizzy, nauseous and unable to see clearly. Maintaining the illusion of being able to walk took more concentration than he genuinely had to spare. But he managed, pulling off the tuxedo tie and jacket before he abandoned the bedroom and descended, by a private entrance, to the workshop.

It was all he could do to position himself over the Iron Man suit assembly gantry, and he found his words already slurring as he ordered JARVIS to power on to suit him up.

"Sir, your vital signs indicate that you should be on full bed rest in a hospital environment, not---"

"Understood, JARVIS. Now suit me up. I have a hundred guests waiting for me, and I need the suit to keep me upright for an hour or two. After that, we can revisit this discussion."

"Very well, sir." The artificial intelligence's voice was a mixture of resignation and disapproval as the suit assembly mechanism rose from the inactive storage in the workshop floor and the Iron Man body armor coalesced around him. Oxygen flowed around his head as the mask closed, and he felt somewhat clearer for that and the automatic hydration designed to keep him from overheating and depleting body fluids too quickly when in the suit. The suit could even breathe for him if he needed it to.

He wouldn't need it to. He whispered the commands that overrode that fail safe, ignored the automatic warning the suit gave him and watched as the heads up display in his helmet showed the function inactive.

A high tech prosthesis. He hadn't been lying to Senator Stern in the least when he'd called the suit that. It had become that more than once in the last few months. Tonight, as it turned out, more than ever.

_"If you were about to go to your last birthday party ever, what would you do?"_ he had asked Ms Rushman, wanting to know the answer would give him, if only to contrast it against what Pepper would likely have said in her place.

_"I would do whatever I wanted with whomever I wanted to do it with." _

It wasn't really what he wanted to do…to destroy Pepper's regard for him-- such as it was at this point; to make himself and the Iron Man something so less than heroic that when they were both gone, neither would even be missed, let alone mourned. He didn't relish what it was probably going to take for Rhodey to get mad enough to breach the workshop security and steal his suit. And he wasn't even sure he could count on pissing his best friend off enough to deliver the coup de grace he was hoping to provoke him into before the night was through.

He didn't want to leave James Rhodes the legacy of knowing that he had killed Tony Stark, old friend, school mate, once and future genius playboy ne'er do well, and almost bona fide hero, so it would have to be made to look like Rhodey was acting for the greater good of the greatest number, rather than helping Tony Stark self euthanize.

But time was short, there was no miracle replacement element for the palladium, and Tony had always been infamous for doing the wrong thing in the worst and most publicly humiliating way possible.

This time the only difference would be that he'd be taking Iron Man and all his promise and threat with him. About time his reputation started working for him and not against him.

Tony stepped from the gantry, reminding himself to grab a bottle from the liquor supply on his way back upstairs. He wouldn't have to be much of an actor at all to make a convincing falling down drunk, and no one would ever know that of all the things coursing through his blood system this evening, alcohol wasn't significantly one of them.

_Show time! _  
****


End file.
